


Amelia

by RoyEdIsMyAesthetic



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feel-good, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Loss of Parents, M/M, Marriage, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Sick Character, Sickfic, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Winter, royed, sick!ed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyEdIsMyAesthetic/pseuds/RoyEdIsMyAesthetic
Summary: One winter, Roy receives a letter in the mail from an old flame.





	Amelia

It was at the word 'personal' that all the ears in Roy Mustang's office turned to a different frequency - that sort of acute attentiveness when you're listening in on a conversation that you're not supposed to because of its nature. And yet there you are, keeping your lips zipped tight and pretending to be busy as you intrude on a secret.

And it was with the name which followed that subtlety was forgotten, and Havoc, Breda, Falman, and Fuery all turned around in their seats to look over at the brigadier general who sat behind his desk at the back of the stately room.

"Sir, there's a letter for you that came in the mail," Riza said to Roy, handing him a tiny envelope as white as snow. "Personal," she clarified. "From Edward."

Roy silently took the paper envelope with a polite nod, and then looked down at the object, turning it over in hand and running a thumb over the address sloppily scrawled on the front as if nothing had changed. As if no time had passed since the beginning, when in fact, years had gone by, marked by the spots of dusty gray touching the thirty eight year old's formerly raven hair.

Stress’ll do that to you.

Eventually, Roy took a letter opener out of his desk drawer and opened the envelope, slipping out a simple cream-colored note card, inscribed upon which was penmanship with which he was very familiar. Absentmindedly chewing his lower lip, Roy rested his chin upon the palm of his hand and read the note a second time.

"And?" Havoc called expectantly, "What is it, Chief?"

With a soft and almost tender smile, Roy looked up for the first time in a long while, paying attention to how the word rolled off of his tongue.

" _Amelia_..." he said softly, in an almost sing-song voice, "Her name is Amelia."

"How quaint!" Fuery chirped happily, "I wish them well!"

Closing his eyes, Havoc calmly leaned back in his chair and lifted an unlit cigarette to his lips with his nicotine-stained fingers.

"Well I'll be damned..."

"I think..." Roy began to say thoughtfully. He paused and set the note down upon his desk carefully, as if the paper were made of glass. "I think I'll go and meet this Amelia..."

"Sir..." Hawkeye began warningly.

"Ed chose her over me in the end," Roy said to his lieutenant. "I understand and accept that. I'd just be going as a friend. I think that at a time like this, Fullmetal needs one, don't you think?" he asked, gazing down at the white envelope once more, the paper as white and as frosty as the spirit of winter itself.

It was winter when Roy received the letter. And it was still winter when he left Central a month later.

It snows in Resembool, though not as much as up north. It's the rolling hills and sprawling landscape that makes it so much grander.

Though the sun shines brightly, the snow carpets the ground, glistening like diamonds as frozen fractals perform pirouettes in the breeze. The icy tundra has no end, and one is unable to distinguish land from pond or river iced-over and ready to swallow you whole if you dare take one wrong step.

One’s only hope is to reach out last minute and grab onto that dark line that extends out, disappearing at the horizon - train tracks - a steam engine’s mournful cry echoing about the silence long after the mouth is shut.

Before, Roy had come to this odd backcountry wonderland three times in his life. Once to see Edward that very first time after the attempted human transmutation. Second for a follow up on Ed's condition a week later. And then a third time to visit the boys after Promised Day.

For a change of scenery, for a change of people, and to feel the country air which now bit at his cheeks with an unadulterated vengeance as he stepped out of his car. The vehicle was parked outside of the Rockbell residence. Or more appropriately, the Elric residence.

Walking down the short, but dangerously icy, path to the front steps of the house, Roy pulled his coat closer around his body. He was shivering violently, and in this desolate landscape, the chattering of his teeth seemed to echo on and stretch for miles. It was with this skewed perception of sound that he couldn't help but wonder how Edward could manage in a place so... quiet.

Lonely.

Perhaps... perhaps that sort of isolation was a self-inflicted punishment. But then, as he rapped his gloved knuckles against the wooden door, Roy brought to mind that people can have the whole world surrounding them, like Fullmetal did, have the whole world looking up to them, and they could still feel lonely all the same - yes, he knew the feeling.

It doesn't matter whether you settle in a city or in a house set in the middle of a snowfield with nothing but the chime of the razor sharp icicles hanging from the roof to keep you company. A home is what you make of it. But still, Roy had a feeling that Edward no longer belonged in this place. Or maybe, he deserved something better.

In whatever shape or form you interpret Roy's notion, the word 'love' can be attributed to it, whether that be as a friend or as something more. To love, or at least in Roy's mind, means to wish the best for another in all they endeavor.

...or at least in three quarters of what they endeavor, because seeing Edward fail at the little things in life was something that Roy lived for.

Roy jumped with surprise a moment later when the door was suddenly flung open by a twenty four year old with long blond hair left down. Edward blinked with shock and confusion... and then swiftly shut the door in his former superior officer's face.

"Fullmetal?!" Roy exclaimed, trying to turn the doorknob and force his way in. "Come on, Fullmetal, I just wanna talk! This is just a social visit!"

"Well be social somewhere else!" Edward shouted in protest, putting all of his weight against the other side of the door as Roy pressed against it. "You can't just waltz over here without a head's up!"

"You sent me a letter!" Roy argued, ramming his shoulder against the door and shoving it ever so slightly open before Ed's weight slammed it back closed again.

"I sent you a  _POST-IT NOTE_  just to check in and keep you in the loop! By no means was that an invitation to come here and eat my family out of house and home!"

"I'M GOING TO  _FREEZE_  TO DEATH OUT HERE!"

"YOU'RE THE FLAME ALCHEMIST!" Edward shouted at the top of his lungs, "Start a fire! Melt the snow! Self-combust! I don't care, JUST GET OUT AND STAY OUT!"

With one gloved hand gripping the doorknob and one shoulder pressed against the frozen wood door, Roy paused for the first time in a while. He waited for the thud of his heart within his chest to slow down, and soon afterward, he heard a quiet thud as Ed let his back fall against the door.

"Edward...  _please_..." Roy said gently, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “People are worried about you. I’m… I’m worried about you. You know that… right?”

A silence fell, the air going still for just a moment before it was disturbed by a click. The turning of a doorknob.

Roy took a step back for some reason, expecting the door to hit the wall with a loud bang, just as it used to. But time did what it does best. It passes. And the door was opened slowly, groaning as it did so.

Roy’s shoulders fell, relaxing as his eyes met a familiar gold. The eyes were very tired, but they still contained a certain spark of what once was.

"Nice to see you, pipsqueak..." Roy smiled, slipping his hands into his pant pockets.

"Nice to see you too, bastard," Ed replied with a frown, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "You look awful.”

"Likewise. You been getting enough sleep?"

"You been using enough Rogaine?” Ed asked with a slight nod of his chin. “You need to fix those bald spots up there..."

"Well, you need to fix your attitude!"

"Well you need to fix your _GODDAMN FACE_!” the blond said loudly, a bright smile spreading across his face as he stepped forward with open arms. “Aw fuck, come here! Al's a hugger now, and it's rubbed off on me!"

Before Roy knew it, Ed practically leapt into his arms, arms wrapping themselves around his neck, chest flush against chest. It knocked Roy off balance in more ways than one, and the man stumbled back a step as he placed his hands at Ed’s waist.

The action was familiar. A bit too familiar. Gloriously familiar, as if nothing had changed between them at all. But after the initial crash, a singular word flashed across Roy’s vision like a flickering light bulb nearing its end.

Thin.

Ed was way too thin - the sort of thin that makes someone sick to their stomach with simply a glance. You get that sort of feeling when you know a person - when you know how they feel. Roy had a clear image of what Ed was supposed to be like, look like, feel like… and this wasn’t it.

The two spun around in a circle, and Edward quickly motioned Roy into the hallway before closing the door behind them, a slight chill still gathering there in that narrow space between the coatrack on one wall and a closet on the opposite.

As soon as Ed turned back to Roy, Roy quickly slipped off a glove, holding the fabric between his teeth as he firmly pressed the palm of his hand to Ed’s forehead.

Ed initially froze, caught off guard by the gesture, but he quickly came to his senses and brushed the hand away. The question he asked wasn’t angry or bitter, but simply curious. “Hey… Whatcha doin’?”

"You're awfully warm..." Roy muttered with concern.

"That’s because you’re freezing!” Ed retorted with an amused smirk. “You always were cold blooded anyway; you kept your office at a solid eighty degrees!"

"I did not! I think that was just your  _raging hormones_  talking..." Roy added under his breath.

Roy expected Ed to make some kind of reply, any sort of reply, but instead, the young man simply motioned his head to the coat rack on the wall.

“Coat!” Ed chirped, in a sing song voice. “Off. Come.”

After having quickly shed his coat, scarf, and other belongings, Roy slowly followed Ed down the hall and to the kitchen, taking the time to peek into the different rooms as he went by.

He had to admit, he sort of missed the days in which he could see evidence of himself in Edward’s dwelling - small objects scattered about Ed’s dorm room, kept for the sake of sentiment. Or because he “Just didn’t have the time to throw the crap out.”

A comic book given as a New Year’s gift. A pen with a fun bear-shaped topper that would jiggle as you wrote. A get well card with a silly saying on the front.

Such stupid things.

Stupid things that weren’t stupid at all, because he was the one who had given them to him. But now, walking through Edward’s home, he realized that he had somehow been… wiped away.

Eventually Roy sat himself down at the kitchen table and watched without a word as the young man, in brown slacks and a wrinkled, white, button-down shirt, hurriedly tried to clear the tabletop of its clutter of dirty dishes, books, and old newspapers.

After having placed the last dish into the sink, Ed looked over his shoulder and slowly turned, lips slightly parted and eyes blinking with wonder, as if he were seeing Roy for the first time. Letting his lower back rest against the edge of the countertop, his silent study of Roy continued.

Just as Roy was about to speak, a blush spread across Ed’s cheeks and glassy golden eyes widened with realization. “Where are my manners?!” Ed suddenly cried.

Roy couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. He didn’t think he’d live to see the day those words would come out of Edward Elric’s mouth. Ed had manners of course - it was just that Roy was rarely ever graced by them.

“Can I get you anything?” Ed asked hurriedly, opening up the cupboards behind him and seeing what was there. He moved in an almost manic frenzy as he listed off all of Roy’s options. “Coffee? Hot chocolate? Tea? Coffee - someone in the office was always bringing you coffee! We don’t have any sugar though, I hope that’s alright… You know, I can-”

“Have you been taking care of yourself?” Roy interrupted.

Edward paused with his back turned, his hand still reaching up into the cupboard, his fingertips brushing the handle of a ceramic mug. When he didn’t answer, Roy called his name. The young man slowly turned, tilting his head slightly to the side. He looked back with that sort of swimming gaze where the eyes just don’t know where to land.

“Hm?” Ed hummed with confusion.

The frown on Roy’s face deepened. “I asked if you’ve been taking care of yourself,” he reiterated in a softer tone.

“Yeah. of course I am. I’m not twelve anymore, Roy.”

“No…” Roy replied hesitantly with a slow nod his head, “No, of course you aren’t...”

With a ragged breath, Ed took a step forward toward the table.

It happened as quick as the snap of your fingers, announced only by a faint whimper, or perhaps simply a cry of surprise.

Ed found himself swaying to the side as the world tilted on its axis, the sharp ringing in his ears swelling and drowning out the sound of chair legs scraping against the wood floor.

Roy quickly rushed forward, placing one hand behind Ed’s back and then using the other to take hold of Ed’s arm, steadying him. Roy could feel it though the fabric of Ed’s shirt - the unnatural heat that came hand in hand with sickness.

“You’re running a fever, Fullmetal,” Roy stated as calmly as he could. He was almost caught off guard by how shaken he actually felt. “You need to get some rest for me, alright?”

“I’m… I’m fine,” Ed replied shakily, “I’m fine…”

As Ed carded the trembling fingers of his free hand through his hair, Roy finally caught sight of it. The gold wedding band on his ring finger - the object and its meaning so incredibly blatant that it almost made Roy sick himself. But he brushed the sudden onslaught of feelings away and continued to help Ed as he needed to be helped.

“Well you don’t sound fine - I’m taking you to your bed,” he said softly, guiding Ed out the doorway and into the hall that they had come from. The blonde made no physical move to resist. The only thing that came Roy’s way were words sleepily muttered under breath.

“Get your hands off of me...”

“I will, in just a sec.” It was then that a small soft smile spread across Roy’s face - the sort of smile that you find yourself putting on when you remember. “You’re always causing me so much trouble... Just tell me which room’s yours.”

When Ed paused, Roy paused as well. It was Edward’s firm grip on his upper arm and the stillness which came along with it that told him something was wrong.

“Amelia,” Ed breathed quietly.

“What?”

Ed’s voice trailed off as he pulled himself away, entering a room to the side as if in a trance.

“Amelia - she needs me, I shouldn’t have left her alone, I don’t know what I was thinking…” he berated himself, his voice almost a whimper, “I don’t know what I was thinking…”

Roy followed soon after, watching curiously from the doorway as, on unsteady legs, Ed approached the king sized bed that sat along the far wall. The bed was unmade, as Ed himself was, snowy white sheets dripping off of the edge of the mattress, melting and spilling onto the floor. Downy pillows were scattered atop the bed, piled high.

A woman’s touch, Roy noted. He’d been with some women before, and some men as well, enough to be knowledgeable about the subtle and usually overlooked differences between the two.

Too many pillows, yet just enough, extra to impress none but the self, and yet somehow, the making of this bed was practical in all the ways that a woman is. And after the initial shock, and the wrenching of his heart within his chest, Roy began to wonder what type of woman that woman was as her child of six months began to cry.

Roy looked on silently as Edward stepped forward into the small clearing in the pillows and slowly bent over at the waist. A moment later, Ed carefully slipped his hand and his arm beneath the baby's back and her head, and the child wrapped in blankets stopped crying almost as soon as her father carefully drew her up to his chest.

Ed looked down at her breathlessly, his tender smile returning as he gently touched the palms of her tiny, pudgy hands and inspected her impossibly small fingers.

“I like how I can hug her as close to my chest as I want to,” he whispered to himself as he began to gently rock his child to and fro. “Because she’s mine. Isn’t that right?”

Edward was cradling the child in his arms.

It looked so out of place, yet so right, and Roy found it all so very confusing. The sort of confusing when you’re unable to put to words the emotions that are felt.

Perhaps it was the tug of the heartstrings when you long for something that you cannot share in. A happiness. Or maybe it was a swelling rather than a throb or an ache - a happiness not shared and yet shared at the same time - maybe that mix when cold weather reaches out and mingles with the warm, or that feeling when you sit a small distance from a crackling fire.

Frozen to the bone. Yet slowly thawing.

It was just when Roy was getting used to this idea that Edward surprised him once more, as to his child, he began to sing a calming lullaby.

_Golden slumbers kiss your eyes_

_Smiles await you when you rise._

_Sleep pretty baby,_

_Do not cry,_

_And I will sing a lullaby_

_Cares you know not_

_Therefore sleep,_

_While over you a watch I'll keep._

_Sleep pretty darling,_

_Do not cry,_

_And I will sing a lullaby_

Ed continued to rock back and forth as he ran the tips of his fingers very gently across her delicate, rosy cheeks. He let out a breath of content before he spoke again, golden eyes momentarily flicking up to meet onyx for the first time in a long while.

“Roy Mustang, meet Miss Amelia Odette Elric,” Ed said, bouncing the baby slightly, “We were going to name her Al if she was a boy.”

Roy took a shy and hesitant step into the room, his fingers lingering on the wood of the doorframe. A gentle nod of Ed’s head gave Roy the assurance he needed to know that it was alright for him to come over. As quietly as he could, he crossed the warped wooden floor, and with his hands behind his back, he looked over Ed’s shoulder with an almost childlike curiosity.

Ed did a double take, initially not noticing the look on Roy’s face that was so foreign. Foreign, but a pleasant relief like a fresh breath of air after the worst has come and gone again. Ed himself found it such a relief that he could see that look on Roy’s face at least one more time, even if the emotion within those eyes was not on his account.

Roy was breathless.

Ed almost didn’t want to bring it up. Perhaps out of fear of the emotion breaking like a wave upon the rocks. But he did so anyway, because he still found wonder in things, and in people, just as he did when he was a younger man. He was sorry to say it despite all of the pain that he had been through, but maybe he was a less broken man back then than he was now.

But still, a younger man.

“You… you look like you're about to cry, Roy,” Edward observed quietly.

Roy smiled a small smile. Smiling because you’re amused. Smiling on the account that a force such as yourself has been overcome. Smiling at the fact that you have surrendered.

"I  _am_  crying,” Roy said, his voice breaking, “I am. She’s very beautiful. Very beautiful...”

“I know...” Ed whispered, looking down at his child with a tender smile. “I know.”

Roy almost didn’t want to bring it up. But hesitantly, he opened his mouth and spoke, intruding in on the moment.

“May I… um…”

“Wanna hold her?” Ed asked quickly, finishing Roy’s sentence for him.

When Roy’s shoulders relaxed and fell, Ed found satisfaction in the fact that he was right. That he still recognized and understood the man’s little signs - the fact that he could still read him as one does their favorite book. He came close to Roy, and as carefully as he could, he transferred Amelia into Roy’s awaiting arms.

Roy was afraid, just as Ed was right after Amelia was born - afraid that his strong, calloused hands would easily break something so fragile. But soon enough came faith in the self. And with faith in the self came the melting of inhibitions. A quivering hand slowly reached down and stroked her head of downy blonde hair and touched tiny fingers, sending heart leaping at the discovery of the softness and warmth of skin, the sweet smell of baby powder taking over.

“She has your eyes,” Roy observed.

“Mhm!” Ed hummed with a pleased nod of his head.

Glancing over at Ed, Roy hummed, a small smile of amusement dancing on his lips.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you though. Sit down for a while. You need to get some rest.”

Edward didn’t argue. He simply blinked his glassy, heavy-lidded eyes and carefully sat himself down upon the edge of the bed with a quiet, but pleased sigh, the sort that an old man gives when given the opportunity to rest his aching bones. For a while, Ed watched as Roy rocked Amelia back and forth in his arms, and then eventually, his eyes drifted upward.

Roy could see him going through the motions of thought. Hesitance, the building of confidence, nervousness, and then the build of confidence again - the sort of thing when you want to say something, but you’re afraid of the answer that you’re going to get.

“Are you…” Ed began. But he shut his mouth, any amount of self-assurance leaving him, blown out the window and flying on the wind.

“Am I what?” Roy asked gently, holding Amelia to his chest.

“Are you… and, um… with...”

“Am I seeing someone else?” Roy calmly finished for him.

“Yeah,” Ed muttered, nervously massaging the back of his neck. With Roy’s words, his hand paused there right below his hairline, the pads of fingers pressing ever so slightly into skin.

Someone else?

Honestly, Roy had never really thought of someone else- the possibility that there  _could_  be a someone else. That someone else could be desired in the same way that…

...well, in the same way the he desired Ed.

“No,” Roy said with a slight shake of his head. “No, I don’t think I could. At least, not… You know, I looked at you, and… and... I thought…”

“You thought what?”

Roy took a moment to find his words. And as if the answer could be found there, he looked down at the child sleeping in his arms before looking back up at Edward. As the words left his mouth, he recognized them as truth.

“I looked at you one day,” he concluded, “and I thought... ‘Oh there he is! That's the one for me - that’s who I’ve been searching for.’ As if you had been hiding somewhere or something stupid like that.”

Ed wet his lips and then silently looked off ever so slightly to the side, as one does sometimes when recalling a memory. Trying to go back in time using nothing but the windows to the soul.

"It… it didn’t go like that for she and I…” he said hesitantly, “We were good lovers in a... in a physical sense. But for some reason, deep down... I knew we wouldn't ever make a good husband and wife."

What Roy said next didn’t take thought. Or maybe it did take thought, but the thinking had been done way beforehand in those moments when you desire a sense of clarity. Those moments when you want to know the reason why.

“You didn’t love Miss Rockbell.”

It wasn’t a question, and neither was it really a statement or a conclusion, but rather a hope all twisted up in a knot. A part of him hoped that it was love. For Ed’s sake.

But another part of him hoped that it wasn’t, and wished that it had been him. That it had always been him. That things could have been different. And better. And the way that they were supposed to be.

But Ed looked at him with those eyes, as if asking how he could ever think such a thing, and Roy’s heart fell because in that moment, the dream fell apart, no matter how short lived it was.

“Of course I did - you  _know_  that,” Ed replied. “Just… just not in that way.”

A silence fell upon them, as does the snow- collecting slowly layer by layer, and then deepening into something greater as it covers up the grass and broken stalks of wheat from the harvest before. With Amelia’s quiet babbling and Roy’s hesitant words, the silence was broken like ice underfoot.

Roy meant well. But sometimes good intentions go awry, no matter how carefully we proceed with them.

“Remember… remember that night? I came here to talk to you about that night. In East City.”

To say that the memory came slowly was incorrect. It was vivid and fresh like a last sentence read.

It was the emotions connected to it that came back slowly, taking time to register in the mind and spread across the face. Placing his elbows on his knees, Edward leaned over and cupped his hands over his mouth and nose as if to hide even further behind the curtain of his blonde bangs. With a shaky exhalation, he then lifted himself upright again, quickly running his hands up and over his hair, letting them rest at the back of his neck as he looked up at Roy for the first time in a long while.

He let out a short, breathy laugh of disbelief, devoid of any humour. Perhaps he would have run with it and laughed it off, but the pain of betrayal shone through. And besides, sometimes the load is just too heavy to lighten anyway.

“You promised,” Ed whispered with a strained smile and a shake of his head, “You promised we wouldn’t talk about that - not ever...”

“Ed…”

“It was the night before my  _wedding_ , Mustang. We slept together the night before mywedding- you-”

Ed paused in the middle of his sentence, his mouth open as he stared not at Roy, but straight through him. Roy’s form became physical once more when Ed’s teary eyes leapt upward, the blonde dumbstruck with realization.

“You ruined...  _everything_ ,” he breathed.

_Everything?_

Everything.

The thought was almost laughable.

“ _I_ ruined everything?” Roy replied, raising his voice, “You just said it! You married someone you didn’t love as a wife; you realized that you had feelings for me, and yet you-”

“She was pregnant with my kid, Roy,” Ed interrupted almost angrily, “I wasn’t going to leave her alone- I would  _never_  do that!”

“I  _love you_ , Ed! I loved you!”

With those words, a shiver ran down Ed’s spine, sharp like a shock of electricity. It was the opposite of the first time and the second time and the third, where the phrase made his heart flutter and take fight on a warm wind.

This time, it was like when you’re in a fight, and you’ve already taken a punch to the gut. And before you get your bearings, in comes the back of a hand connecting with cheek, the crack like a thunderclap or a cane connecting to the vertebrae of the back. A shock. Such violence where there used to be love, feelings all twisted in only the most grotesque of ways, and the pain is all your fault.

It’s all your fault…

Edward hung his head like a dog- a dog that knows it’s done its owner wrong. His eyes searched the carpeted floor as Roy continued.

“You knew that I loved you, you told me that you loved me, and then you had to run off and sleep with someone else. And to this day, it’s still... I just… I just want to know why. Why you would do something like that to me!”

A second later, Roy paused, and his heart twisted within the confines of his chest as Amelia squirmed in his arms and began to cry, the sound a high-pitched wail that turned red in the face and made the hair at the back of Ed’s neck stand on end. Instinct told Edward that he should do something about his crying child, but he pushed the feeling away. And he turned his head and whispered, his voice intentionally quiet so that he could hide the shame in the words that he spoke.

Roy narrowed his eyes, unsure of what he had heard.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that...”

“I said I was confused!” Ed spat out, his voice on the verge of breaking.

Roy couldn’t help but let out a scoff of disbelief. “You cheated on me because you were fucking  _confused?!_ ”

Fingers buried themselves into golden hair, nails practically clawing at this scalp as his shoulders shakily rose and fell.

“I was  _scared_ , Roy.” Ed’s voice was a broken murmur, barely above a whisper, but still torn with emotion. “I was  _scared_ , and I was  _confused_.”

“That’s your excuse?! You were fucking  _twenty three_ , Edward - you were old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, dammit!”

“I lost track of things- I let things get out of hand! I was-”

Edward paused, looking for an answer. An answer as to why he let things get so bad, why he let himself fall so damn low, but his mind was swimming. And he couldn’t draw a single answer from beneath the surface of the water, and even if he tried... not a single word, nor a single sentence, nor an entire novel could explain the reason why he made the mistakes that he did.

“I was just confused,” Edward concluded, suddenly standing up from his seat on the bed.

Quickly turning his back to Roy, he raked his trembling fingers back through his hair. The blood pumping through his veins was boiling- he wanted to hit something. He wanted his knuckles to bleed, he wanted his skin to be torn right off like wrapping paper off of a gift. He wanted to skin himself right there, right now, but all he could do there was stand there and shout.

“ _Fuck!_ ”

“Confusion is…” Roy took a deep breath, a second to remind himself of the precious bundle that he held in his arms. “Confusion is reading something wrong on a shopping list and buying apples instead of apricots- getting in bed with somebody else can’t be amounted up to confusion, but instead something else entirely!”

“Didn’t you hear me?! I said I was confused!” Ed stated again, his vision blurring. Tears were rolling down his cheeks, but the heat of his skin completely cancelled the sensation out, and ironically, he felt nothing. And yet everything at the same time.

“Geez, Roy, you’re saying all of these things, all of these things, and you act like you know me, but you don't know anything! You don't know anything at all!”

Roy pulled a crying Amelia closer to his chest, holding onto her like a lifeline as words were spat out.

“Miss Rockbell came into town, and you went after her the first chance you got - did I mean so  _little_  to you, Edward?!”

Ed slapped his hands over his ears as he doubled over at the waist as children do when they hear something that they don’t like. And then then scream, either to drown the words out or break the barrier between the imaginary and reality. Ed said his words over and over again to convince himself. Because he needed it to be true.

“It’s not my fault! _It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, IT’S NOT MY FAULT!_ ”

“But you chose to marry her!”

Edward’s throat tightened with a strangled intake of breath before a gut wrenching sob tore through his chest, its impact nearly making him double over.

“SHE WAS MY  _FRIEND_ , MUSTANG! She died giving birth to my child- I  _killed her_ \- she’s gone! She’s dead, she’s gone, she’s...  _nothing_! And I  _killed_  her! Do you know what that’s  _like?!_ ”

Those final words hung heavily in the air, or perhaps in the lack thereof that comes when the mouth is snapped shut and the throat constricts, closing in on itself.

The sound of Edward’s labored breathing was pronounced, heard even over the sound of his child’s crying.

Roy’s eyes did not leave Edward once as he put Amelia over his shoulder and bounced her slightly before rubbing her back in circles. He hushed her quiet, a gentle  _‘Shhh…’_ whistling over and over from his ever so slightly parted lips. Amelia eventually calmed down, her sobs diminishing into a quiet cooing, and then a silence. But even after she fell calm again, Roy continued the odd ritual. Because she hadn’t been the only one he was trying to comfort.

_Shhh...._

_Shhh...._

Roy finally quieted, and stilled, letting out a ragged breath before speaking in as gentle of a voice as he could.

“At the end of the night... I kissed you goodnight, and I told you that no matter what you chose to do… I’d take care of you. I’d be there for you if you needed me. Take Amelia and come live with me. In Central. And I’ll take care of you two- I  _promise_  I will,” Roy said, his voice breaking with emotion.

And for the second time that day, he cried. Because he meant it as one does their wedding vows. 

“I will  _care for you,_ ” he choked. “And will  _cherish_  you. And I will-"

"But Winry-" Ed interrupted with tears in his eyes and a slight shake of his head.

"Winry's gone, Fullmetal, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry..."

Before Edward was able to do anything else, Roy stepped forward and pulled him into his warm embrace, holding him as closely as he could with the baby tucked in between them. And in that position Roy remained, feeling Ed’s chest spasm with gulping, yet silent sobs as he continued to cry, the way that one does when they’ve already had their share of grief and pain and sorrow. And then they can’t do anything but weep over the fact that such things exist in the first place.

Roy closed his eyes and buried his nose into Ed’s hair, letting the smell of Ed, and his sickness, consume him and swallow him up as his collared shirt grew damp.

Onyx fluttered open after what seemed like an eternity, when Edward finally stilled and his breath evened out.

Languidly, the blonde pushed Roy away, being careful to keep his red face bowed and out of sight.

“Don’t touch me...” a hoarse voice muttered.

Roy repositioned Amelia in his arms, and Ed and froze as timid fingers took a gentle hold of his chin and slowly lifted it so that swollen, pink eyes met a gaze soft with understanding.

“I know that it’s hard. I know- I really do. But you need help, Ed, just… just let me in for goodness sake. Let me help you. It’s what I wanna do.”

"I messed up,” Ed said, reaching up and wiping his tear-streaked face with the back of his hand. “It's over. Whatever it is that you want... whatever it is… whatever it is you wanted... you can't have it anymore. So I don't know what it is that brought you back here to me."

Roy’s shoulders fell with sympathy.

_“Oh Ed…”_

“Give me my kid back, Roy. Just leave me alone. Please.”

Roy went silent for a moment, thinking Ed’s words over. When he was satisfied with his answer, he gave Ed a reassuring nod.

“I’m going into town and getting a room at the motel if you need me. If not, I’m coming back in an hour to check up on you.”

“Just get out...”

And he did.

~~~

It snows in Resembool, though not as much as up north.

The icy tundra has no end, and one is unable to distinguish land from pond or river, iced over and ready to swallow you whole if you dare take one wrong step. One’s only hope is to reach out last minute and grab onto that dark line that extends out, disappearing at the horizon.

Train tracks. A steam engine’s mournful cry echoing about the silence long after the mouth is shut.

Just before the baritone voice of the conductor came on over the loudspeakers, there was heard static, loud like the crinkling of cellophane in hand. Edward held his swaddled daughter close to his chest as the young man made his announcement.

“Attention passengers. We will be arriving at Central Station at an estimated time of approximately one hour and thirty minutes. All trains going in and out of Central have been advised to decrease their speed due to bad weather conditions. We are sorry for the inconvenience.”

It was winter when Roy received the letter. It was still winter when he left Central a month later. And it was still winter when Edward left Resembool a month after that.

A chill ran through Edward’s body, the involuntary action coming about from the air that seeped in through the glass of the frosted window beside him. He adjusted the wool scarf around his neck before quickly dipping his head down and kissing his daughter’s forehead, the sound of the wet smack of his lips lost in the rumble and vibration of the locomotive around them.

“See that, Amelia?” Ed whispered in a soft, sleep as he turned his head to the window. “Sounds like it might take a while, but we’re almost there. Almost there...”

The world was white like an envelope, or a wedding dress, or bed sheets tangled up in a mess, enveloping flushed, naked bodies like a silk cocoon, and then dripping over the edge of a hotel mattress. When he let his eyes fall closed, Ed saw the dark, which belongs to no one but the darkness itself. But when he let out a quiet breath, he felt not his own breath, but Roy’s, trailing up over his exposed neck as the warmed bed sheets all around whispered to them quietly.

Roy positioned himself above Ed, going up on his hands and knees while Ed lay on his back, blonde hair splayed out on the pillows, catching the moonlight and shining like a halo.

He wished that he could stay in that perfect moment. That perfect moment where they were mere inches apart, with Roy looking down at him with those dark eyes filled with nothing but love.

But the clock cannot be turned back. And that is what makes these moments precious.

Roy’s lips parted, but for a while, he said nothing. He took a moment to find his words. And as they left his mouth, he recognized them as truth.

"It's over. Whatever you want… whatever you wanted... you can't have it anymore. So I don't… I don’t know what it is that brought you back here to me."

Edward paused, looking for an answer. For a moment, he thought that not a single word, nor a single sentence, nor an entire novel could begin to explain the reason why he did what he had done.

Frustration, pain, pride, envy, lust. Anger, fear, grief, and self-disgust- they were all words from which Edward could choose. Such violent and complex words- they’re the poison that runs through the veins, the match that lights the fire, the keys that lock the iron cage.

He was afraid to open his mouth out of fear of a cry rising up and out of his throat like a bird taking flight or a bullet launched from the barrel of Hawkeye’s gun. He parted trembling lips, only to close them once more, the corners turning upward into a small, shaky smile.

But a smile all the same. A smile for the first time in a long while.

A smile and a joy and truth and a hope and a weight lifted off of not only the shoulders, but the heart as well, soft as newly fallen snow.

“I needed you,” Ed whispered.

_I need you._

The world was white.

It was winter when Roy received the letter. It was still winter when he left Central a month later. It was winter when Edward left Resembool a month after that. It was winter when he and Amelia arrived at Roy’s doorstep.

And there were many winters that came after that.

When a child wakes, looks out the window, and sees that the world is different from how they left it, they think white to be nothing but the product of a dream. That what came first, and what came second, and what came third… or in whatever order you put together the equation… it couldn’t possibly lead up to a happiness and joy such as this.

But it did, as sometimes three words do.

The world was white.

White like an envelope, or a wedding dress, or bed sheets tangled up all in a mess, dripping off of a king-sized mattress in a quiet bedroom in a quiet townhouse sitting in the middle of a quiet, unplowed Central City street.

Roy had always been a bit cold-blooded.

He kept his office at a solid eighty degrees, or perhaps that was just Edward’s raging hormones talking. But either way, the man slept soundly tucked beneath a heavy quilt. And Edward slept soundly tucked beneath the heavy quilt as well, with his and Roy’s legs tangled up together and one heavy arm draped protectively over his waist.

Downstairs in the dimly lit kitchen, a young woman with bright gold eyes and long blonde hair sat silently at the table. Her pen did figure eights upon the surface of the paper in front of her as she wrote her beloved uncle, Alphonse, a letter. Or a post-it note rather, just to check in, keep him in the loop, and wish him the best in all that he chose to endeavor.

And after she was done, Amelia went off to make her aging parents their morning cup of coffee. 


End file.
